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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27739546">righteousness</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splashattack/pseuds/Splashattack'>Splashattack</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Wilde Week 2020 [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A Wilde Week 2020 (Rusty Quill Gaming), Corruption, DRAGONS my dudes, Gen, hmm maybe destroying eiffel's folley wasn't the best idea but who am I to say, no beta we die like everyone who angers the meritocrats</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:14:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>621</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27739546</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splashattack/pseuds/Splashattack</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He still believes in their power, though. He has to.</p><p>written for day five of wilde week.<br/>I wanted to write until wilde was an anarchist but then I got bored so here's wilde stubbornly refusing to denounce the meritocrats</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Guivres &amp; Oscar Wilde (Rusty Quill Gaming), The London and Other London Outstanding Mercenary Group | LOLOMG &amp; Oscar Wilde</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Wilde Week 2020 [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029099</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>A Wilde Week 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>righteousness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>day five: meritocrats <strike>and harlequins</strike>/<strike>virtues</strike>/viciousness</p><p>cw for canon-typical corrupt governmental figures</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Wilde remembered it like it had happened only the day before: receiving the envelope, cutting through the thick wax stamp, skipping straight to the end of the parchment. He’d been accepted into the program.</p><p>Working for the meritocracy was about as good as one could hope for, in this world. Only the best were accepted, and the level of prestige that came with the position was invaluable. Wilde had been accepted to help uphold order, to better society, to assist the world in any way he could. He was finally able to <em>do</em> something.</p><p>The training was long and strenuous. He spent long days studying ciphers, honing his magic, and pouring over maps. He diligently took notes through countless history classes, documenting the fall of Rome and rise of the meritocrats. Wilde quickly rose to the top of his class of initiates, and he stayed there until graduation.</p><p>Wilde was assigned to manage a team investigating the Simulacrum. He’d heard of it, of course‒anyone who was worth knowing had, and he certainly fit that description. The team was eccentric, and didn’t seem to like him much‒but he had experience with animosity, and it wasn’t his job to be well-received, not when he was finally able to <em>help</em>.</p><p>The meritocrats, Wilde came to appreciate, are strict, but generally fair. They did not impose punishments on the innocent, and whatever they ruled, it was for the greater good. He grew to trust them to do what was best.</p><p>He’d just sent the London Rangers on their way to Prague and was limping away from the ascending airship when he heard it: a far-off screech, panicked screams. They echoed through the empty shell that Paris has become in such a short time.</p><p>Wilde swallowed and looked up, though he already knew what sight would await him. A large golden shape shimmered far ahead of him, approaching the towering monstrosity of corrugated metal and scrap fabric that forms Eiffel’s Folley. He saw what was going to happen before it did, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away as a bright plume of flames shot from Guivre’s snout onto the structure, as she beat it with her wings and head. The supports had never been up to standards, and it was over in mere seconds. Wilde wasn’t sure how many people died‒and he didn’t want to change that‒but he knew it was for the best. The meritocrats were in the right.</p><p>He learned that Bella Smok had died a few weeks later, and it came as a shock. Wilde had never come close to considering that these entities, so powerful and benign, could perish. It was inevitable that they would, but they’d been here so <em>long</em> that the mere idea that he’d see it happen was laughable. The fact that he hadn’t noticed, as wrapped up in their operations as he was, served only as reinforcement to how skillfully they ruled.</p><p>It wasn’t until Wilde and his team made it to Damascus that he started noticing inconsistencies in the orders he received. They started small: incorrect dates, false alarms; insignificant enough that he could ignore them individually. They didn’t stop, though; quite the opposite. They grew into mistakes so glaringly huge that Wilde knew if he wasn’t so good at his job, someone would be getting hurt.</p><p>There was something wrong in the meritocracy.</p><p>It made more sense once he learned that they’d been infiltrated by the Cult of Hades‒not much more, though. Wilde has spent so long viewing the meritocrats as infallible that the fact that they could allow themselves to be in such a position was frankly astonishing.</p><p>He still believes in their power, though. He has to.</p>
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